


The Question

by AParisianShakespearean



Series: Dreams [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Cullen, Awkward Flirting, F/M, Flirting, Hair, Hair care, Teasing, hair care discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 20:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12154371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParisianShakespearean/pseuds/AParisianShakespearean
Summary: Inquisitor Lydia has a burning question for the Commander: why does he hide his natural curls?





	The Question

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a side story for my slowburn, a scene that I wanted to insert but needed to be cut for pacing reasons. It also worked fairly well as a stand alone, so I thought I would share. Takes place between chapter twenty four and twenty five.

“So. You and I, Ser Rutherford. We need to discuss something.”

Cullen looked up from his paperwork to Lydia, who stood in front of him with her arms crossed, and a knowing look on her face. “What would that be?” he asked, setting down the papers.

“Your hair.”

“I…” An involuntary blush began to bloom across his cheeks. Ever since that unfortunate episode that involved the two of them falling into the water at the Oasis in the Approach, and Lydia saw what his hair looked like sans brushing or hair product, the furtive glances she had given toward him hadn’t gone unnoticed.

She giggled. “All this time I wondered why Varric called you Curly!”

“Mhm. Yes,” he mumbled, as subconsciously he wove his fingers through his tresses, though today they were combed back as they usually were.

She sensed his unease. “You don’t like your natural hair, do you?”

In truth, he really didn’t. “No,” he revealed to her. “I used to.”

“What changed?”

“Well…”

It was rather silly and little absurd that something so mundane as the story of his hair would be so in depth, but it was, and it was even more absurd that he was actually telling Lydia, the Inquisitor, this story. But he did, and he began at the best place to start, the beginning.

“When I was a boy my mother said that I had hair like my father,” Cullen began.

“Blonde and curly?”

He smirked. “Yes. Blonde and curly. But when I started my training, a rather…ornery older recruit used to tell me I was a pretty boy.”

“That’s not a lie,” she piped.

He raised his brows. “You…think I’m pretty?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a boy and being pretty simultaneously!” she insisted. “I mean you are…oh you can continue!”

He tried very hard not to puff out his chest in a touch of masculine pride. “Well, alright,” he said with a chuckle. “There wasn’t much I could do about it though, or so I thought. So I just lived with it for a while. And then when I went to Kirkwall things like…my appearance weren’t things that I thought about regularly.”

“What changed?”

“Rylen is completely obsessed with his hair,” Cullen said. “He constantly runs his fingers through it.”

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe,” he said smirking. “Anyway, I asked him how he straightened it. He asked me, and I quote, ‘have you tried a comb ye dolt?’”

Her laughter rang through the hair, making Cullen laugh in turn. “Well, that and product,” he said when their laughter quieted. “Sadly I’m running out though. I suppose I don’t hate my natural hair as much as I used to, but…” he shifted closer to her. “Keep it a secret won’t you?”

Closer, she inched. “Of course, Curly.”

They shared a knowing smile with one another. Maybe it was ridiculous, but sharing that part of him with her, even something as absurd as his hair texture…

He rather liked it.

Later on he went into his room, the day long and his body weary. Waiting on his bedside table was a small jar with a note. _Cullen_ , it read. _Apparently our healers also know a thing or to about hair care. Don’t get mad, they didn’t waste any important materials when they made this. I just thought if you were running out of product, this would come in handy. Also, I added something else to it. Lydia._

Rylen asked him the next day how on earth he got his hair to smell like elderflowers.


End file.
